This morning I read an essay on Pharyngula by the popular blogger and prominent atheist PZ Myers. Someone sent him photos of a funny shaped rock and asked him for his interpretation. This reminded me of an episode that occurred to me some years ago.

I finally met Dr. Wroblewski in March of 2010 when he visited Seattle.

It’s great to know people with genuine expertise, as you can ask them questions! Some years back I had been walking along Alki Beach here in Seattle. I started noticing funny shaped rocks, or perhaps teeth, in the sand. I picked a few up. Since my educational background is a BS in pharmacy, I really didn’t know what I was looking at. Were they rocks? Were they fossils? Were they eroded teeth? Why did they have little pits? I’ve always been a curious person so I decided to follow up on what I found. I sent Anton a photograph of the specimens. He thought they were intriguing, but wouldn’t speculate further without examining them. I packaged up the strange samples and sent them off. He examined them and suggested they were not fossilized shark teeth as I had fantasized, but simply funny looking eroded rocks. Well, no harm no foul.

I was appalled to see how differently PZ Myers chose to react to someone who sent him photos of a strange rock sample:

I’m sure that a celebrity such as Myers is often the target of cranks that send all sorts of things. Yet how do we know that this individual was an “ignorant nudnik” or a legitimately curious person?

It’s doubly disturbing to consider that Myers is an instructor at the university level. Does he behave like this to his students? There is already an enormous social pressure in classrooms against asking questions. No one wants to look foolish by asking a “dumb” question. You can see this social pressure in action when people add meta-data to their questions with the preface “this may be a dumb question but…”

There are excellent resources on the Internet for those without personal access to PhDs. One that comes to mind is AskMeFi or Ask Metafilter. One of the things that keeps a resource like that functioning is close moderation. Personal attacks like asserting the questioner is an “ignorant nudkik” are not tolerated. I’ve used AskMeFi to help me gather information about such strange things as “MountainMarbles.” For those who are particularly wary of publicity, it’s possible to ask questions anonymously.

While it’s perfectly reasonable to dismiss those questions that are not asked in good faith, it’s unfortunate to see mockery and dismissal used by someone like Myers who should know better. Of all people, Myers should be well aware of how much pain and misery in the world is caused by ignorance. Inherent in asking a question, ANY question, is the admission of ignorance. When the very act of admission of ignorance is mocked, as Myers is doing, it creates a chilling effect for those who might wish to learn.

POSTSCRIPT:

While out exercising today, it occurred to me the individual who sent the photos may have not specifically ASKED Myers what the rocks were. Upon carefully re-reading the post, it appears that the individual concluded that the inorganic sample was “mineralized brain.” Heck, I can relate, I thought I might have found “fossilized shark teeth.” Without specific clarification, we can’t know what exactly the individual claimed.

4 Responses to “Funny Rocks and Pharyngula”

I lost respect for P.Z. Myers a few years ago during the JREF YouTube Channel shutdown incident. Phil Plait (who was at the time the president of the James Randi Educational Foundation) announced the shutdown on his Bad Astronomy blog but appealed for calm, assuring his readers that the issue was being dealt with and apologizing that he could not go into any more detail. In the absence of information speculation will rule, and so many of the comments on the blog quickly collapsed into conspiracy theories and vague threats of reprisals against enemies (real and imagined) and YouTube itself. Meanwhile, P.Z. Myers took the torch and ran with it, and encouraged his readers to take up torches as well – pitchforks, too – and whipped his readership into an unreasoning hysterical frenzy. Meanwhile, anyone who asked the gathering mob to abide by Phil Plait’s request was viciously attacked and accused of cowardice and treason (including mockery like “SKEPTCISM: YUR DOIN IT RONG.”) Finally Randi himself broke the information blockade and explained that the shutdown was due to a formal complaint filed against certain videos that used copyrighted music without permission – essentially a nuisance complaint, but technically a valid one. The issue was resolved fairly quickly. Myers never did anything to address his irrational hysterics or his irresponsible behavior, nor to reel in his marching minions, while Phil Plait – who could have defused the situation at any time – broke his silence the next day and chided his followers in the gentlest possible terms for their over-enthusiasm. I lost a lot of respect for both of them in that incident, but I realized that whatever P.Z> Myers might be, he is not a voice for rationality.

I sent PZ Myers those pictures of what appears to be a mineralized brain. I was only seeking his opinion. I am neither a creationist or evolutionist. I want to have it evaluted. I would like to send pictures to whoever you think might be interested. It was broken off a larger rock before it went into the crusher at a rock quarry Ventura Calif.